Rain START accuracy / dependability?

Tempest Owners
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Hey all, I don’t actually own a tempest weather station yet but I’m seriously considering it. My application for this device is likely to be a much different use case then most here.

I plan on using this for astronomy and using my telescope. I have to leave my scope out overnight for imaging and sometimes although forecast can show clear sometimes a shower can randomly start to occur overnight. This doesn’t happen often in NYC but I need this as more of a fail safe mechanism.

The most important feature for me is being notified when rain starts. Any other rain data such as total rainfall is not really of importance for me. Do you all find that it provides accurate results as to when rain starts? I’ve read many reviews regarding unsatisfactory results with accumulation but as stated that part isn’t really important for me.

I considered the tip bucket types but I fear my gear would be soaked before the bucket fills enough to tip. Any thoughts or advice would be great. Thanks!

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The rain start event push notification is the best thing about the haptic rain sensor, and owners use it in all sorts of home automation scenarios…

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Thanks for the input! Would even a light rain / drizzle set it off?

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Mist/fog, no. If the drops are big enough to make a sound, then yes…

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I would go for a dedicated rain sensor. The tempest has algorithms that prevent false rain detections. This is great but in your case might be a disadvantage. It might rain and it is suppressed, or a bird might land on the device and trigger a false rain event. The first one might ruin your telescope, the second might ruin your overnight experiment.
Beside it isn’t very good at detecting very, very light rain.

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